almost famous

So, I was driving to the gym yesterday – barefoot, for reasons I do not intend to discuss, and digging deep into my gym bag for a pair of socks. (Which, alas, I never did find.) With one hand on the steering wheel and both eyes on the road, I groped through the big black bag, feeling through shoes and tanks and Lycra, until my hand landed on what I thought was my quarry. Upon pulling it out however, I discovered that I mistook a sports bra for socks, but since I wanted to keep that out too – again, for reasons you do not need to know – I slipped it up my arm until it hung around my elbow. (Which was obviously the most logical place to put a sports bra given my current situation. Duh!) But still needing my socks, I then went back to the bag. Searching some more, my fingers landed on a small wad of what felt like money. Wanting to keep that too separate, I pulled it out, and - lacking a wallet, pockets or shoes I might tuck it into - temporarily placed the bills between my lips. (Which yes, I realize is terribly unsanitary; however no, I really do not care.) And although finding money is good, finding my socks was a necessity, so back into the bag I went, where I groped and I groped and I groped but, annoyingly, to no avail. The gym now looming on the horizon and my feet still inappropriately bare, I decided it was finally time I take an actual look inside the black hole sitting on my passenger seat. And so look I did. (But not for too long, mind you. If this little story has illustrated nothing else it’s shown what a safe, conscientious driver I am.) But after being unable to find what was never there in the first place, my eyes finally looked up to meet: disaster! While I wasn’t looking, some vague and amorphous thing had apparently decided to come flying at my windshield, and had it not been for my quick thinking and cat-like reflexes leading me to swerve most suddenly and jarringly into the left turn lane, that plastic bag would most definitely have come crashing into me.

So, you know,…whew.

Only after I had reached my destination and turned into my chosen parking space did it occur to me the newspaper headline and byline I had just so narrowly escaped:

Local Woman Dies After Veering into Oncoming Traffic

Victim’s mental health is called into question upon discovering she had been driving barefoot, her underwear on the outside of her clothing and her mouth stuffed with money.

And so, again,…whew.